


Space and Time

by Missy



Category: Laverne & Shirley (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Decisions, Developing Relationship, Difficult Decisions, Established Relationship, F/M, Love Confessions, Moving, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:00:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23392135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Sequel to Futsin's "It's Only a Matter of Time."Laverne and Lenny have been an item for a few years now, but when fate intervenes Lenny has to make a choice between familiarity and taking a leap of faith with Laverne.
Relationships: Laverne DeFazio/Lenny Kosnowski, Shirley Feeney/Carmine Ragusa
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Space and Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Futsin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Futsin/gifts).



> Read Futsin's story here first: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271466. Some altercanon for Not Quite New York.

Laverne took two steps over her threshold and rent her coat in half, buttons flying every which way in angry distress. Shirley was two steps behind her and had to dodge the flying buttons like bullets as she made her way to the kitchen.

“I don’t believe it,” Laverne sputtered. “I don’t – and they – the cheap…”

Shirley had her head in the fridge, grabbing the milk bottle and a bottle of Pepsi. She combined them in a single glass and handed it to Laverne. “Drink, it’ll settle your stomach.”

Laverne’s chest heaved, but she grabbed the glass and swallowed, feeling a speck better as she did so. Then she slammed the jelly jar back onto the counter. “SEVEN YEARS! I gave ‘em seven years of my life, and what do they do? Replace me with a machine!”

Her roommate was calm. Eerily calm. “I see you’re at the anger portion of your grieving process – I’m in the idea portion,” Shirley said.

“Oh no. I know that face. Shirl, whatt’re you thinking of?”

Whatever Shirley had been thinking of, she’d have to wait to hear it. “Laverne! Are you home?” Lenny was yelling down the dumbwaiter. 

Shirley moaned as Laverne raced over to the dumbwaiter. “Yeah, Len – you can come on down.”

When Laverne slammed the drawer closed, Shirley stood by, arms crossed over her chest. “You might have asked me!” Shirley said.

“Do you ask me when you’re gonna bring Carmine over?” Laverne asked. 

“No, but Carmine and I keep our clothing on above the waist. I still don’t believe you’ve been dating that man for five years,” Shirley remarked.

“Wait, you and Carmine go to second and you complained about me and Len making out on the couch!?”

“This is different! And not a conversation I want to have in front of the boys!” 

“Aww, come on, Shirl.”

“No! This is not a time for discussing roving fingers and rushing hands!”

“Hello!” The front door slammed open, admitting both Lenny and Squiggy to the apartment. They were singing “We’re in the Money,” which was enough to make both girls burst into frustrated tears.

“Happy raise…oh. Oh no, don’t cry!” Lenny got an arm around Laverne – and when Squiggy reached to comfort Shirley he got an elbow in the gut. “What’s wrong? Laverne, you’re all leaky!” He was squeezing the life out of her all at once.

“They fired us,” Shirley said.

“What?” Lenny asked.

“Fired us!” she yelled into Squiggy’s ear, and he held the opposing side of his head.

Lenny whistled through his teeth as Squiggy shrugged. “So what?” You two can live off of our ernies!” 

Shirley’s nose wrinkled. “What on earth makes you think I’d take charity from you?”

“Well, since we’s all but in-laws at this point,” Squiggy said. 

“Are you insane?” she asked him. 

“No! The guy at the hospital said I was paranoid, but I told him flat out I was German.”

Shirley groaned. She watched Laverne and Lenny huddling together in the center of the room. “Do the two of you want us to..”

“Yes,” Laverne and Lenny chorused.

“In the middle of the afternoon?” She squawked. 

“No!” They said.

“I just wanna be alone with Len,” Laverne explained. “Nothing smutty’s gonna happen.”

“Really?” Lenny whined. She poked him with her elbow. “Uh yeah, nothing smutty.”

Shirley and Squiggy shot one another long-suffering looks. Laverne and Lenny had been fairly steadily together over the past few years, at least by Shirley and Carmine’s standards. “Come on, Andrew. I have to break the news to Carmine. We’ll split a pizza after.”

“All right, but be sure to knock when we get back!” He looked at them both. “I’ve seen things that would make a grown tot sob…” Leaving the thought unfinished and shaking his head, he followed Shirley out the door.

When the door closed, Laverne let out a sigh and pushed her way out of Lenny’s arms. He sat down on the sofa while she stripped her work smock off with disgust. She had a wild urge to burn it in the bathtub but decided whatever financial penalty she’d pay wasn’t worthwhile. 

“Wanna beer? Or some Pepsi?”

“If you got a beer,” he said. “So uh…whatt’re you going to do?”

Laverne took a deep breath. “Shirl’s been talking my ear off about this idea of hers, and I think it’s what she’s gonna suggest when she gets back…” She grabbed a Shotz out of the fridge and carried to Lenny with a look of disdain on her face. “We could go to LA.” 

His eyes widened. “All the way across the country? To the Moldy Orange?”

“Well, y’know my Pop’s already got a place going with Edna. Cowboy Bills is gonna open in a couple of weeks, and they could probably find us a place while we tie everything up here, and we could wait tables ‘til we get ourselves rolling.” Her eyes went a shade dreamy. “I always wanted to try and dance for real. Remember that time you and Squig drove me to Chicago for that audition?”

Lenny nodded. “I always thought you’d be a great little dancer,” he said.

“Yeah, and I can’t do that in Milwaukee. And California’s got easier winters and – well, we’ve got family over there.

He gulped. “I dunno.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Whaddya mean, you don’t know?”

“Well, me and Squig just got a two buck an hour raise,” he said, as she perched herself on the arm of the sofa. “And with that kinda money I can take care of you…”

“Len,” she said, her voice a warning shot.

“I know,” he held up his hands. “You don’t want me to support you, you don’t want me to ask. Again. But I could. We could get our own place. Y’know. Live in sin in style.” 

Shirley had told Laverne she was crazy for turning down Lenny’s offer to marry her. Both of them. But both had been wrong – horrible timing. The first was precipitated by a broken condom and two weeks of morning nausea, which led to a blood test and the realization that she was allergic to the Knee-Hi’s she’d been drinking every night before bed. The second had been made out of desperation when she wanted to take a break from the relationship. They had dated others, been bad at it, and gotten back together.

“We can’t do that, Len. My Pop would have a stroke.”

“He wouldn’t if you’d…” Lenny made a frustrated noise and trailed off. “Never mind.” He withdrew quietly back into himself.

“So what do you want outta life, huh?” she asked. “You don’t got any dreams?”

Lenny shrugged. “I always thought I didn’t deserve a dream, so I just followed Squig’s.”

She squashed her face into his chest. “Len…”

“I wanna be in love,” he said. “I wanna have a family, and I want to be happy. I just…don’t wanna be my mom.”

He might as well have shot her right in the heart. She nodded. 

“I know I said I wanted to be this big swinger, but I never wanted anything else, deep down. All the fame stuff, all the big band dreams – that’s Squig. Y’know how he is, Laverne.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You’re the only dream I ever had.”

“Len…whatt’m I gonna do if you stay here?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I dunno. We can write, we can call…but I dunno what’s out there for me if you don’t…”

She cupped his chin and he stopped talking. “Can you sit here and hold me?”

He nodded. 

It was a long time before either of them moved again. 

*** 

Laverne spent the rest of the week bawling her eyes out as every new goodbye passed. Old friends – things she couldn’t take with her on the bus trip to California – the apartment – The Pizza Bowl, which was now under new ownership thanks to her Pop’s dealings. She would look at Shirley and burst into tears. She’d think of missing Lenny and burst into tears. She went to the bus station to buy tickets with her Pop’s money and cried.

She felt dumb and vulnerable, but she also couldn’t help herself. It was like the whole world was ending, and Lenny was a part of it.

When they left the building for the last time, she stood on front of the building, on the stoop, watching Carmine and Shirley make out while they waited for the bus. The two of them were finally back in ‘on’ mode after a full six month break and were doing some pecking to make up for lost time. Laverne resisted rolling her eyes at them both in annoyance.

Then a beeping sound came from up the street and a large ice cream truck barreled down toward them. It splashed in the gutters as it came to a halt, barely managing to avoid the piles of boxes she'd packed.

“What the hell’s the big –“ Her angry invective was cut off as she looked up and met two blue eyes.

“Hi,” Lenny said quietly.

“Hi,” she echoed. 

Lenny got out of the truck, brandishing a big bouquet of daisies. “I uh…got these for you?” He’d accidentally phrased that as a question. Laverne kept her hands at her sides and tilted her head at him.

“Len. Whatt’re you doing here?”

“I got something to say.”

“So say it.”

He took a deep breath. “Laverne,” his voice was shaking. “I love you.”

The words made her stop and stand still, right in her cut-offs and her tee shirt, standing on the stoop of the building where they’d hated and then learned to like one another. Even Carmine and Shirley had stopped making out to watch them.

“I’ve loved you since I was six, and I’m always gonna love you.” He gulped. “So,” he shoved the flowers toward her again, “Blither thou go west, I’ll go west. I can do my dream anywhere, but if you’ve gotta go to California for yours, I’ll follow. I quit Shotz, and Squig and I gave Missus B back our deposit, and we bought the truck with the money we had left.”

“On a count of needing something to make wads of dough while we’re figuring things out,” Squiggy said from the window of the truck. “You two gonna make out or am I gonna have to start hitting you with soft serve balloons?”

“Whatt’re you trying to do, get us broken up?” Lenny hissed at Squiggy.

But she didn’t make a move toward him. In the background she heard Shirley say her name, but Laverne had been pinned down by Lenny’s eyes, her heart going a mile a minute. Her inaction made him slowly return the bouquet to his side. He spun on his heel, shoulders slumped, and began to walk back to the ice cream truck – probably to avoid crying in front of her.

Her life – their life- flashed before her eyes. Laverne surged forward. “I love you!” He stopped mid-step, pivoting to face her. Laverne felt her breath catch. She’d been so afraid of those words – hadn’t said them even when he’d proposed before. But there they were on her lips –the ones she’d been afraid to say since her mother had died.

Lenny was back to the stoop in a second, taking stairs two at a time, and he seized her hands like they were a lifeline. “Okay. Say it to my face this time.”

She pulled him down by his grip the six inches that separated them and kissed him as if she would never stop. When it broke he pulled her up into the solid heat of him in a bear hug, and she said it again. “I love you, Len.”

As he kissed her, and Shirley went back to kissing Carmine, Squiggy shrugged and lobbed a soft serve balloon at them.

She only punched him a little, when it was over. 

*** 

_Three Months Later_

Lenny placed the chocolate cake between them on the bed. Two little matchstick candles glowed in the middle, lighting up his blue eyes. Lenny was humming happy birthday through his nose, the left arm of his robe dipping off of his shoulder, revealing a thick blue vein on milk-colored skin, a solid but not muscular chest, and a tangle of dark blond chest hair. She knew this part of him well – could see the vulnerability in him and the strength. 

Laverne crossed her legs underneath her as she blew the candle out, then watched Lenny portion the cake onto two paper plates. He handed her a fork and watched her take a bite.

“Good?”

Part of her had feared he’d tried to bake it and she’d been given a meat cake but nope, normal devil’s food. “It’s good!” she said, mouth full.

He sighed in relief. “Good! Edna made it. I told her I was gonna make you my carrot-beef cake, but she thought you’d like this more.” He shrugged. “No accounting for taste, right?”

She hid a smile behind her fork. “Right.” She ate, and was surprised to note he hadn’t gone ravenous on his own plate. Maybe it was the memories. Lenny never celebrated his own birthday, for obvious reasons, no matter how much Laverne did to try to turn the day into a happy one for him. 

“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?”

“Nothing. I’ve got a present for you but um…” He awkwardly patted his front pocket of his robe, but changed the subject before she could ask him questions. “Never mind. I’ll give it to you later. So: California huh? Whaddya think so far?”

“It’s…” Well, Laverne liked it well enough. It was warm, and they’d found themselves some new friends. She and Shirley had found positions wrapping gifts at Bardwells, a very large department store. In between they hit up auditions with little success.

To be honest, the boys were doing better, having opened a talent agency (Squignowski Talent Agency of Burbank – or, as Lenny proudly and repeatedly told her, STAB) slash ice cream selling business. Squiggy was very happy – he got to put the moves on multiple starlets a day. And Lenny got to sell ice cream – which, they all knew, suited him better than trying to make his feverish scripts saleable to the studio system.

The boys were right across the hall now, which meant easier access for Laverne, and she didn’t have to annoy Shirley during their dates. Not that Shirley didn't annoy her with Carmine, now that he'd sold his Marjorie Wards’ branch to move to California and be with Shirley. But her best friend was still dating other men. They had a lot less luck than Lenny and Laverne had. 

“Warm,” she said, but that was more because Lenny was kissing his way up her hand, licking the crumbs from her fingertips.

She landed her mouth on his while her hands wandered – down the solid warmth of his chest - and found him half-hard just from her kisses. By the time he pulled her hungrily onto his knees with a growl, she was wet and soft and open, but Lenny kept going, nearly landing knee first into the cake until she carefully set it all aside on the floor. He drew her onto her back, discarding her robe, tossing his on the opposite side of the bed, along with the plates. 

Lenny managed to cram himself on the opposing side of the bed and kissed his way down her body – examining her, as if he’d never seen her before, as if all of this were new. His fingers and tongue stroked her until she squirmed and moaned. Until she tugged at his shoulder and pulled him up to taste herself upon his lips. She shoved him onto his back and nearly off of the bed so she could kiss him. He resisted the temptation to come in her mouth – barely. Then he slid behind her and into her in a single smooth motion, shivering, still not used to the brave world of pills that made condoms an unnecessary device.

“Do you need..?” she said breathlessly as she laced her fingers with his.

He shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “I know where home is.”

She squeezed the hand holding hers and pressed her palm against the wrist anchoring her to his torso.

Yeah. 

So did she.


End file.
